


10 More Things You Never Knew About Severus Snape’s Mother

by Librasmile (Tenthsun)



Series: Sins of the Fathers [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, Family History, Gen, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:13:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3138953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenthsun/pseuds/Librasmile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Hogwarts, Eileen’s best subject was magical history. How could it not be? She dragged so much of it behind her before bequeathing it to her son. My interpretation of what lies behind Eileen’s silence…</p>
            </blockquote>





	10 More Things You Never Knew About Severus Snape’s Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Once again I’m delving into the Prince family history. Enjoy the ride!
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and all associated owners/licensees. I own nothing but the original elements of the plotline.

1.   **At Hogwarts, Eileen’s best subject was magical history.**  How could it not be? She dragged so much of it behind her. Before she’d even been born, her father had survived World War I which had destroyed his family in Rome and the Armenian genocide which had destroyed his family in the Caucasus before that. Her mother had survived the Troubles in Belfast before they drove them into her father’s arms and then to her death from Eileen’s birth. So you could say she had a gift for enduring epic tragedies. On the plus side, her aptitude earned her the position of teacher’s pet. On the minus side, fat lot of good that did her, since the teacher in question was a ghost. But she’ll always have a soft spot for Prof. Binns.   
  
2.   **The Sorting Hat had wanted to put her in Hufflepuff.**  But there was nothing and no one for her to be loyal to – correction, there was no one who would care enough to return her loyalty. And besides, she would have been turned out of her cousin’s home, defenseless girl or not, if she’d landed anywhere but in Slytherin.  
  
3.   **Her second favorite subject was Astronomy.**  She loved staring at the stars, tracing the constellations and the stories they told in the endless black silence. She’d done it from the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts, from the window of the tiny attic bedroom she’d been consigned to in her cousin’s home, and when she’d travelled across the steppes with her nomadic father. Wherever she landed the stars were always there. The stars understand silence and yet they still shine. When they appeared they brought the light in the darkness. She loved the stars…  
  
4.   **She’d always wished she’d inherited her mother’s green eyes.** They were the only thing her father ever mentioned about her mother with any hint of longing. Otherwise, when it came to recalling memories of her mother, he was silent.  
  
5.   **The Half-Blood Prince’s potions book did not come from her.** It was bequeathed to her son by their cousin Cornelius Prince, a fact which surprised her because, like most purebloods, Cornelius despised Muggles and any taint of one.

No matter how many times Tobias had begged, cajoled and tried to threaten her into taking him to Cornelius’ home*, she never did because she knew Cornelius’ wards would kill him on the spot. Nor was Cornelius shy about using the epithet “Mudblood” around Severus.

So to say she was surprised that he would give Severus his own potions book with a record of the innovations that had kept Cornelius’ own apothecary shop alive from the 1800s well into the 20th century was an understatement.  
  
6.   **She met Tobias at a Muggle church; she should have known no good would come of it.** All the other girls had gone. It would have looked strange if she hadn’t gone too. It was bad enough that they already thought she was odd. They were all factory girls and she worked in her cousin’s bookshop. But there were still Muggle things that had to be purchased and since neither Cornelius nor his sister Cordelia would deign to set foot in the Muggle world, it fell to Eileen to get them.  
  
Going to the shops meant using Muggle money. Using Muggle money meant having a legitimate, taxable source for it otherwise you could wind up in a Muggle jail. And it had to be something that no one would question. So Eileen worked part time at the factory, where Tobias also worked although she’d never seen him until that Easter Sunday service.  
  
Stilted conversation turned into walks “home” (the portal to her cousin’s home), turned into an invitation to his father Rev. Silas Snape’s tent revival (she always wondered if the Muggles who claimed to catch the Holy Ghost ever saw the actual ghosts that liked to flit around the raucous congregants), turned into a reciprocal invitation to the Beltane festival that, ironically enough, was held in the same field as the tent revival.

It was only after she was heavy with child, turned out of her cousin’s house, and far too dependent on Tobias that she finally understood that the gleam in his eye after she’d extended that invitation was the gleam of the teeth that sat bared and ready at the center of his soul. He wasn’t a minister’s son for nothing. He understood power and craved the power to eclipse his father.

It would be years and years, not until the day of her death (or what might as well have been her death despite the fact that her body took its own sweet time about actually dying) that Eileen would be able to muster enough strength to show him what true magical power really was. Too bad he died shortly thereafter**.  


7.   **If she could speak from the afterlife, she would say that she was not surprised that her son had become a Penitent***.**  His grandfather had been the same, a seeker, always searching for the path to true Enlightenment. Eileen would be long dead before her father would realize that the true path led back to England and what was left of his family. 

  
8.   **She never told anyone why she’d agreed to partake of the Beltane Rite** –**  well no one but the man she’d consummated it with. She wasn’t sure she fully understood why herself. When she tried to figure it out all she could come up with was the sense of… _missing-ness_  that echoed around her insides like a voice lost in the distance.  
  
She'd never told that man that she’d recognized him. Nor did she tell him that he’d given her a son. Besides in all the years of Severus’ childhood, adolescence, and burgeoning adulthood, when the boy was surely within arm’s reach for the majority of the year, that man had never once queried the boy about his life, never once looked back to see how she was. And he knew her. She knew he did.  
  
Still she’d said nothing and neither had he. She hadn’t submitted to the Rite for him. And when she’d left, clothed only in the sheet she’d lain on, stumbling on shaky legs, she’d gotten her son. Severus was hers and hers alone. That’s all that mattered to her. 

  
9.   **It was Eileen who’d warned her father to go to Severus as he lay bleeding out on the floor of the Shrieking Shack.**  From behind the veil of death so many things had become clear to her, including the humongous karmic debt her father had both inherited and accrued. And she understood in no uncertain terms that if he wished to maintain any sliver of a hope in hell of seeing a peaceful afterlife, he needed to clear that debt, balance the accounts. Saving the life of her son and her grandsons’ father would be a good place to start.  
  
 **10. Upon opening her eyes in the afterlife, Eileen had met the soul of the woman whose son _her_  son had sworn to protect with his life**.  Having not seen her since the woman had been a child, Eileen’s first thought was surprise at the striking resemblance, in coloring at least, of this woman to what she’d seen in photos of her mother. As her Prince ancestors had welcomed her into their arms they’d explained that this woman owed her a karmic debt – one of many she had accrued although not as many as her also dead husband had - and would remain on the outer reaches of the afterlife until she’d paid it. Until this woman could face Eileen’s pain, her debt could not be canceled. And it would begin by telling this woman her life’s story.  
  
Eileen had dutifully listened to them and when the woman had timorously approached to make her entreaties, Eileen had turned away. Whether seconds, eons, or hours had passed Eileen could not say. Nothing the woman said or her Prince ancestors said or even Dominica Woodson Prince, the founder of their family name, said could move her as Eileen held tight to the silence that had enveloped her from birth. Eileen’s eternity became as silent as the grave her body lay in, as silent as the days of her life.  
  
And the silence remained, still and unmoving - until the Battle of Hogwarts, when, for the first time in his life, her father actually heeded his daughter’s voice and hastened with every ounce of magic he had to reach his grandson’s side. There on the floor of that wretched derelict of a shack that had meant nothing but pain and the shadow of death to her son, Eileen silently watched as her father called on all of his magic and every ounce of power in the Prince ancestral line to save his grandson’s life.  
  
Only after her son had opened his eyes and his grandfather had apparated him safely away could Eileen look up from the rotting wooden floor where her son had almost died to see the red-haired woman who owed her so much. And because the tears on that woman’s face matched her own, Eileen began to tell her her story. 

  
**~Fin~**   


**Author's Note:**

> *If there is any reader interest in Cornelius' house - the house, in my head cannon Severus should have inherited but didn't - please leave review/request. If there's enough interest, I may publish my meta on this. I might even be able to post a photo if it's allowed.
> 
> **See my earlier story For the Price of My Familiar to learn how Tobias Snape died or to see the Beltane Rite Eileen participated in. Warning: this story begins with and depicts sexual situations although the depictions are not graphic. 
> 
> ***The Penitents are my creation. They are a secretive – some say religious, some say spiritual, some deny there’s any religion involved at all – sect within the wizard world. 
> 
> This is another installment in my look at the family history of our favorite – or most feared! – Hogwarts professor, Severus Snape. Although I think much of it stands on its own if you’ve read the Harry Potter novels or seen the movies, it might help to read some of my earlier installments: For the Price of My Familiar, Answers to Nothing and As Pretty Does


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